Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 27 July 2022

SSC CGL Current Affairs

Current Affairs for SSC CGL Exams - 27 July 2022

::NATIONAL::

State seeks two weeks from K’taka HC over enrolment of dropouts

The state government informed the Karnataka high court on Wednesday that as per its directions a committee of senior officials has met and discussed ways and means to bring children left out of educational and the anganwadi systems into schools and shelters.
While details of the proceedings of the meeting have been submitted to the court, two weeks have been sought to file a report on it.
A public interest litigation petition by the high court, acting on its own, has senior advocate K N Phaneendra in the role of amicus curiae.
A survey conducted in rural Karnataka in October 2021 and in the Bruhat Bengaluru MahanagaraPalike (BBMP) and 319 urban local body limits in March 2022 found that a total of 1.012 million children are out of the educational system in the state.
This includes 533,000 children aged between 4 and 6 years, 15,338 children between 6 and 14, and another 454,000 children below the age of three.

::INTERNATIONAL::

China's blistering heatwave strains power grid, threatens rice, cotton crops

Scorching temperatures across China are straining power grids as the country tries to ramp up industrial activity to support the economy, while farmers scramble to save crops such as rice and cotton from the impact of the searing heat.
Several regions have already posted record power demand and have cut electricity to factories at peak hours to make sure there’s enough to keep air conditioners running. Rice crops and fruit and vegetables in southern China are at risk of being damaged by the heat, and melting glaciers are causing floods in the cotton-growing regions of Xinjiang.
The heat is testing China’s ability to keep its factories running, from the eastern manufacturing center of Zhejiang that borders Shanghai to the technology hub of Shenzhen in the south. The disruptions in the world’s no. 2 economy are yet another sign of the risks posed by increasingly frequent extreme weather events caused by climate change. India, Europe and the US have also been ravaged by heat waves this summer.
China has so far avoided the widespread power curtailments that hit the country last fall when there was a nationwide shortage of coal. The authorities have expressed confidence that the current situation is manageable, not least because the supply of coal is much higher after miners were ordered to raise production to record levels.
The focus is now on southern China and another bout of hot weather that’s expected over the next 10 days, according to the China Meteorological Administration.
But in the case of the southern economic powerhouse of Guangdong, where the heat wave has pushed demand much closer to the grid’s limits this year, it’s equipment malfunctions rather than a shortage of coal that has caused problems, BNEF’s Hanyang said.

::ECONOMY::

Cereal prices rise due to low stocks, high demand amid patchy rains

Ahead of its meeting, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) can take some solace from the softening food commodity prices. However, the events surrounding the last few weeks show that the fall may not be uniform across all commodities, and cereals like wheat and rice could be the outliers.
A Reuters report said that local wheat prices jumped to a record Rs 23,547 per tonne on Wednesday. That is a 12 per cent rise from the recent lows that followed the government’s surprise ban on exports on May 14.
The spike was due to rising demand amid dwindling supply of a crop damaged by heat wave, Reuters said.
In case of paddy, patchy monsoon since the start of June over the main paddy growing regions of UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Odisha has pulled down acreage. Till the middle of July, the acreage was almost 17 per cent less than last year.
With the revival of monsoon over several hitherto-parched lands of UP, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, there is hope that paddy planting would pick up and cross last year’s levels.
However, given that a sizeable portion of the sowing is happening after the peak period, there are questions on the final harvest. “Yes, the situation was bad till a few weeks back, that is till the end of June, but since the middle of July, there has been a revival in rains. This makes us hopeful that in the final analysis, overall paddy acreage may not be much less than last year,” VinodKaul, executive director of All India Rice Exporters’ Association, told Business Standard.
As on July 1, rice stocks in the central pool were almost 134 per cent more than the buffer stock requirements. On July 1, stocks in the central pool were around 31.5 million tonnes. This is much higher than the requirement of 13.5 million tonnes.
These rice stocks do not include around 23.15 million tonnes of unmilled paddy lying with millers. This is the highest since 2015, official data showed.

::Sports::

Suraj Vashisht becomes India's first Greco-Roman U-17 world champion in 32 years

16-year-old SurajVashisht wrote history on Tuesday night as he won a gold medal in the 55kg Greco-Roman event at the U17 World Championships. He is the first Indian to become the Greco-Roman world champion in U17 age group since PappuYadav, who had reached the feat in 1990. While India are yet to win a gold medal in Greco-Roman wrestling at the Worlds, this is the country's fourth medal in junior age categories.
The Indian youngster defeated European champion FaraimMustafayev of Azerbaijan 11-0 in the 55kg weight class.
Pappu Yadav had won the gold medals in the U17 and U20 categories in 1990 and 1992 respectively. Vinod Kumar, meanwhile, had won the U17 gold medal in Greco-Roman wrestling in 1980.